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“This one surprised me, I didn’t expected to to be at all so fruity. I’d gobbled down some dark chocolate right before I started sipping too and usually find that chocolate will overpower delicate...” Read full tasting note
“Aroma: Aromatic and delicious. Summer fruits: passionfruit, lychee and apricots. Fragrant hopps and mandarine peel. Vegetal kelp/iodin notes with a slight strawiness. Second steeping is slightly...” Read full tasting note
“Summer Vacation! Completely exhausted tonight, and honestly wouldn’t mind some black tea, buuuuut… I was up way too late last night, and really need some decent sleep tonight, so I’ve opted for a...” Read full tasting note
“Smooth subtle buttery flavour with fruity aromas and milky/nutty undertones. My favourite green right now.” Read full tasting note
One of the most delicate and famous green teas, Pi Lo Chun is a rare and highly-prized tea that was offered in the Imperial Court. Elegant twisted leaves picked between the end of March and early April are a beautiful deep dark green. The leaves transform during brewing into a lighter green and produce a pale yellow infusion with a green tinge. A fresh, light aroma has hints of chestnuts and a fleeting floral bouquet. Light and smooth, with very little astringency, this is a simple, ethereal delight.
Origin: Fujian Province, China
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This one surprised me, I didn’t expected to to be at all so fruity. I’d gobbled down some dark chocolate right before I started sipping too and usually find that chocolate will overpower delicate green teas but I could taste this one right away. So far I’m really enjoying it but will save the ranking for a chocolate free session :)
Aroma: Aromatic and delicious. Summer fruits: passionfruit, lychee and apricots. Fragrant hopps and mandarine peel. Vegetal kelp/iodin notes with a slight strawiness. Second steeping is slightly muted and not much on the third steeping.
Palate: Sugar cane, passionfruit and tropical fruits. Mandarin and citrus peel. Really flavourful but beautifully balanced. Little to no tannins. Distinct similarities to Ya Bao white tea. Still delicious on second steeping, with peach notes coming through. Third steeping is a bit bland.
Colour: Very light golden.
Overall: Delicious. This tea really blew me a way and left me wanting more – a new favorite! Light, refreshing, complex and well rounded. The only thing that lets it down is the rapidly declining quality of brew after the second steeping.
Summer Vacation! Completely exhausted tonight, and honestly wouldn’t mind some black tea, buuuuut… I was up way too late last night, and really need some decent sleep tonight, so I’ve opted for a cuppa of green tea tonight. So a grabbed a Chinese green from my T2 sampler stash, and this time I didn’t make the mistake of following their instructions. It said to use their full sampler packet to 450ml of water. I weighed the packet and it was 5g of tea. According to the site I use to help with leaf/water ratios, that is way too high for a green and would’ve been horribly bitter… no wonder that darjeeling turned out so horribly! So I measured out just what I needed and stashed away the rest of the sampler for another use. It’ll be nice to have some extra to play with anyway, I find I usually have to experiment a little with greens as it is.
I did 1.8g to 350ml at 175 F with only a 1 minute steep. I’ve never tried this sort of tea before and the packet said 1-3 minutes on the steep time, so without knowing if it tends to go vegetal-astringent, I decided to keep to a briefer steep. The tea has a very sweet, floral aroma; a bit like honeysuckle, and also a little like spearmint. The flavor is a bit light and delicate, and I’m not sure if that is just a feature of this sort of green, or if I should’ve gone for a longer steep (on one of my other uses of the leftover leaf I’ll make sure to push the initial steep time a little longer to compare). It is very smooth though, and I’m getting notes of warm hay and spearmint, with more subtle floral, nutty, and fennel notes. This is nice, and quite relaxing… I think I’d enjoy this iced as well.
Flavors: Fennel, Floral, Hot Hay, Nutty, Smooth, Spearmint
5g to 450mL is outrageous and up to 3 minutes could make a very bitter green brew. I’m not familiar with T2, but they’re potentially losing unwitting customers with that brewing advice.
FWIW my experiences with bi luo chun (pi lo chun) have also been light and delicate. I’ll send a little of what I have so you can compare.
Now that i think about it, 5g to a 450mL in a gaiwan is fine. I wonder how a minute-long brew in a gaiwan would turn out as I don’t really do greens that way.
Also, I’m still learning, so I could be totally wrong on all fronts. Maybe somebody else knows better?
To be fair, I don’t think T2’s typical market is the gong fu-brewing sort, so I think their directions are for western brewing. Yaaaaa… they way overleaf their directions. My first experience with darjeeling was extremely bitter as a result, which is what clued me in to that. I was bone tired last night, but remembering that awful cup of darjeeling, I was not too tired to get out my scale this time and see just how much tea they were putting in their samplers compared to their directions, and sure enough… I agree, they are going to turn people away who don’t know better (or aren’t tenancious enough to try again and experiment) by doing that. I suspect that since they mostly market flavored blends, and directions like that would taste fine on those (they would come out “extra leafed” and thus “extra flavorful” which might just be their marketing strategy), they just don’t bother at all to adjust them on the packaging for the pure teas, but they really need to. Because tannins happen. * sad face *
If that is typical of Bi Lou Chuns, I’ll go ahead and keep to the 1 minute steep though. It was still nice, I just have had to play around with steeping parameters a lot with greens in the past to find my optimals and find each type tends to be a little different. With gong fu, I have to play around even more because I hardly ever have time to sit down and do a session (I’ve tried maybe… three times?) and usually always mess up my ratios/parameters the first time and get a bitter session the first try, have to scrap it, and then a great session the second try, hahahaha.
One of my faves!